


Bodies of Clay

by Dolorosa



Category: Pagan Chronicles
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2012-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:29:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolorosa/pseuds/Dolorosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten moments in Isidore and Babylonne's life together. Post Pagan's Daughter/Babylonne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I. The first night after they left the siege, they slept under the trees, beneath the stars. Babylonne changed back into boys' clothes that Isidore had managed to scrounge from somewhere, clothes like the ones she'd been wearing when they first set out together. There was no water, and no way she could be clean, and she wrung her hands constantly, turning them over and over in her lap. Isidore sat beside her, near but not too near, silent until she wanted to talk, his eyes bright in the firelight.

She burnt her women's clothing.


	2. Chapter 2

II. When they finally arrived in Bologna (after many adventures and mishaps that need not concern us now), they had not seen another human being for several days. It was something of a shock to be bumped and jostled by people, to have some hurrying idiot drop his load of eggs on your shoes. Isidore pointed out landmarks - monasteries, markets, fountains, churches - to an unresponsive Babylonne. When her silence finally became too disturbing, he tugged at her sleeve.

'Is this too overwhelming?' he asked.

But then she turned to him with a grin.

'This is _not_ a one-church town,' she said with satisfaction.


	3. Chapter 3

III. Isidore was out of the house most days. He worked long hours teaching students canon law and ecclesiastical history, and continuing his own theological studies. Babylonne was in no way confined to the house. It was just that once she had wandered around the market, and picked up the few items of food they needed, and hung around in the shadow of the basilica chatting to the handful of refugees from Languedoc (who were her friends simply because they spoke her language), and watched a pair of young men brawl in the street against a cacophony of appreciative onlookers, there wasn't very much for her to do.

One afternoon, Isidore had an idea.

'I will teach you to read,' he said. 'I will have to teach you to read Latin, though, as I don't have any books in the _Langue d'oc_ , and only one in French.'

Babylonne looked skeptical.

'I've seen your books. They're all squiggles and dots and scarcely any pictures. I don't think people can learn to read when they're old.'

'Because you're an ancient, aged woman of seventeen!' replied Isidore, laughing. 'No, I agree it won't be easy. Latin is a difficult language, and it takes most people years to master. Truth be told,' he added in softer tones, 'there are several so-called learned doctors at universities from here to Montpelier who have yet to master it. But if you can read, you'll never be bored. And learning to read will give you something to do when I'm not here.'

He gave her a wax tablet and an alphabet that night, and taught her how to spell her own name: B-A-B-Y-L-O-N-N-E.

Privately, she felt it had too many letters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The basilica next to which Babylonne hangs out is the Basilica di Santo Stefano.


	4. Chapter 4

IV. 'I will never be able to do this!' Babylonne announced to the empty house, glaring at the tablet, on which Isidore had scratched several simple sentences for her to read while he was out.

Individually, the letters made sense. She could remember the alphabet, and the sounds each letter made. She had memorised how to write her own name, but when it came time to make sense of a string of letters, to ascertain what sound they might make together, she was stumped.

 _I must just be really stupid,_ she thought. _Little children learn how to do this - why can't I?_

She stalked around the room, dejected and angry. Then, with an exclamation of disgust, she sat down again. She looked at the letters. She looked at them so hard her eyes could've burnt a hole in the tablet, if eyes could produce fire and wax were flammable.

 _Sound it out,_ she heard Isidore's voice say in her mind. _Say each letter individually and then run the letters together._

Suddenly, something just clicked. If you had asked her to explain how she understood what to do, she would've been unable to do so. All she knew was that it felt like a thunderclap resounding in her mind. Slowly, carefully, she sculpted each word, shaping its sound. And then she began to laugh.

When Isidore returned home that evening, grumbling about one of his more annoying students ( _he seems to think that because his cousin is some minor official in Padua, I should fall at his feet and marvel at his wit_ ), Babylonne confronted him, hands on hips.

'You _know_ I only took those eggs because I was hungry!' she said.

'I also seem to recall some complaining about "the scandalous wealth of the Church of Rome",' he replied.

'Hypocrite priest!'

'Ranting heretic!'

As they both fell about laughing, Isidore managed to gasp out, 'so, what does the tablet say?'

' _The girl stole the eggs_ ,' said Babylonne. 'I've written something else underneath.'

Isidore picked up the tablet from where it lay on the floor.

' _She did not eat the eggs. A red-haired priest came to her house and frightened her silly relatives._ Well, you've misspelt "priest", "house" and "relatives", but it's a start.'

He smiled at her.

She was already imagining the stories she would write.


	5. Chapter 5

V. Two days after Babylonne's eighteenth birthday, Isidore arrived at home and, with a flourish, produced a tiny, rather battered book and a less tiny, pungent wedge of cheese.

'I borrowed the book from a friend of mine. It is a collection of stories - rather silly stories - in the _Langue d'oc_. It will probably be more interesting than slogging through a Latin grammar for schoolboys.'

He busied himself slicing the cheese up, while Babylonne fetched bread and a rather tired-looking apple. They were both uncharacteristically quiet as they ate their impromptu dinner. Babylonne chewed her cheese contemplatively. Isidore tried to scratch the ink stains off his fingers.

Later, neither could explain how it happened. All they remembered was that suddenly Babylonne had set down the remainder of her cheese, sighed with contentment, grabbed Isidore and started kissing him. His mouth was still with shock for a few seconds, and then he kissed her back.

After what seemed like several hours, but in reality was less than a minute, Isidore pulled away.

'But - we - but -' he started to say, and Babylonne put her hands over his lips.

'Not another word,' she said, and kissed him again, fiercely.

After that, they were unable to stop. She gripped his robe tightly and pulled him close, and his arms were around her back, lifting her, so that her face could reach his, tangling his fingers into her hair. And then they were stumbling, kissing, clinging, pulling their clothes off and tumbling into her bed in the bookroom because they were too impatient to make it to his bedroom. And it was messy and complicated and awkward, and they laughed at themselves, because figuring out what to do was difficult, and also because of sheer joy.

They did not fall asleep straight away, but lay watching the moonlight pool on the end of the bed, stroking and kissing and listening to the sounds of the town as it slipped into sleep. They did not say a word. It was a night out of time, and all their words were for tomorrow.


	6. Chapter 6

VI. Some time the next morning, Isidore sat up in bed abruptly.

'What have we done?' he asked in shock.

I should've thought it was pretty obvious,' Babylonne grumbled, pulling the blankets over her head. 'I want to go back to sleep!'

'No, Babylonne, stop. What have we _done_?'

'Surely you're not feeling _guilty_?'

'Aren't you?'

'Not one bit. Doing what we did - '

'We can't ever do it again!' The panic rose in his voice. 'I'm a _priest_ and I've taken vows of celibacy and you're only eighteen years old and I'm so much older and you've been through so much already and I feel like I've taken advantage, somehow, and did I mention vows of celibacy?'

'Isidore. You need to calm down. Stop. Think.'

Isidore took a shuddering breath, and got up out of bed. He began to pace the room.

'I am not even going to try to convince you that what we did is right, why all the things you have said don't matter,' said Babylonne. 'Those are things you have to work out for yourself. All I will say is this: what you have taught me, every day, every moment since I met you was to think, to do, to feel for myself. You never told me what to do or what to believe, merely gave me the tools to work it out on my own. You taught me how to think, how to _really_ think, and what thinking has taught me is that there are more ways to _be_ on this earth than there are stars in the sky.

'And there is no one right way to be. There is only a right thing to do in one specific moment. And in the moment, last night, I truly believe that what we did was right. If you don't feel the same, I am sorry, because I, I would quite like to do it again some time.'

'I know priests who don't keep their vows,' said Isidore. 'I know priests with lovers and whole families, and I used to pity them with all my heart. Some of them are my friends - oh, what if you are pregnant now?'

His face was anxious.

'Well, then, it would hardly be suprising. This is, after all, how babies are made. But in all seriousness, calm down. If I'm pregnant, I'm pregnant. I can't see you throwing me and our child out into the street, really, because you're one of the good ones! Nobody seems to bother you very much, and you've had me living with you for over a year now - don't you think if your superiors were going to be scandalised by your behaviour, they would've been so already?'

Isidore sighed, and smiled a tiny smile. He tried one more protest.

'But you're Pagan's _daughter_.'

'How do you think I got here? There's a certain irony, really. My aunt always said I'd end up the same as my mother - _fornicating with Roman priests_ \- and here I am. In fact, they accused me of doing just such a thing with you all those years ago! It was part of the reason why I ran away, as you know.'

Isidore had stopped pacing the room.

'I think - I _think_ you are right,' he said, 'but I need time to think about all this.'

'Of course,' Babylonne replied.

And then she smothered a giggle.

'All this would seem much more serious,' she said, 'if you weren't wandering around the room completely naked.'


	7. Chapter 7

VII. The best thing, Babylonne decided, several weeks after her eighteenth birthday, was the random bursts of happiness that would wash over her at any unsuspecting minute.

 _I get to kiss and be kissed_ , she would think. _I get to hold and be held._

Isidore, translating something complicated and Greek, seemed to feel her thoughts and looked up, smiling. She walked over and sat down next to him -

'Be careful of the books!' he said, out of habit.

 _Such a simple thing,_ she thought, _the lacing of fingers, the holding of hands._

He put down the book and pulled her closer. It was such a cliché, the stuff of wandering storytellers' tales, but she could feel his heart beating.

She clapped her hand to her mouth involuntarily. This happiness was impossible, it was too much. She felt as if her skull was cracking.

 _Me?_ she thought. _Me? Me?_


	8. Chapter 8

VIII. 'Why do you think,' asked Babylonne, as she husked peas in preparation for winter, 'that what we do, who we are to each other is an open secret and yet no one, not one person, in a university town, in a _papal state_ does a single thing to stop us?'

'Who else do you know who is like us?' Isidore asked.

Babylonne thought for a moment.

'Heinrich and his two "housekeepers" Amara and Serafina, and their brood of children. Jacopo and his "cousin" Emilia. Oh, and Ardal and Miguel, obviously.'

'Quite right. But do you not see a common thread? All of those men are, while not exactly stupid, not high-fliers. They are not priests who want to be politicians. They are clever, and good teachers, but they stick to orthodoxy in their studies, they don't cause trouble or make a fuss or draw attention to themselves.

'I am the same. As you well know, my beliefs are little more pluralistic than I let on when teaching or studying, but I keep that to myself and to those I can trust. I don't take sides in squabbles. I try to be careful.'

'So you're saying that you're not important enough for anyone to care about, and so those in authority mostly leave you alone?'

'Well, it's not as simple as that. Those who know about us have a huge amount of power over us. Every day, I am careful never to do anything to anger those people, or to ensure that I have something correspondingly compromising with which to threaten them. Why do you think Heinrich and Ardal and all the others know about us? It's so that we all share dangerous knowledge about one another, so that no one will betray the others. Yes, it's cynical, but it's also prudent.'

They were silent for a few moments. Babylonne's hands whirred, and the pea-shells dropped steadily from her fingers to the floor.

'It's clever,' she said at last, 'but it's also kind of sad. To have to live small lives, quiet lives, careful lives, when what we feel is huge and loud and courageous.'

'Never think that it's not worth it!' exclaimed Isidore, as he gathered up the pea-husks into ink-stained hands.


	9. Chapter 9

IX. 'You're _still_ in bed?' Isidore asked with concern as he stepped back into the house in the late afternoon. The sun framed his red hair, making him look uncharacteristically angelic.

'I just feel tired all the time!' Babylonne grumbled. 'It was cold when you left, so I didn't want to get up then. And then I fell back asleep, and when I woke up I just lay here. I could barely keep my eyes open! I don't know what is wrong with me!'

Isidore looked worried as he sank down onto the bed next to Babylonne. He stroked her hair.

'Do you want anything to eat?' he asked.

'Not really,' she replied. 'I staggered out of bed and ate some beans and barley about two hours ago, so I'm still pretty full from that. It seems silly to get up now, anyway.'

Isidore nodded, his eyes bright with concern.

~

The next day, he slipped out of bed very early in the morning. Babylonne did little more than groan and pull the blankets over her head. After about twenty minutes, Isidore returned. He was carrying a steaming mug of something in his hand. It had a creamy-brown colour, halfway between the crust of a loaf of black bread and the interior of an almond. It smelt bitter and sweet and spicy and somewhat dangerous.

'Here. Try this,' he said, holding the mug out to Babylonne's prone form.

'Stop making it sunny,' was her only response from beneath the blankets.

'Babylonne, listen. Some of the North African refugees were selling this stuff in the market yesterday, making a big fuss about its energising and restorative powers. I'm so worried about you that I'll try anything! And it does smell delicious.'

Babylonne emerged, grumbling, from beneath the blankets. Her hair stuck out like a bird's nest around her head. She brushed her hand across her eyes and took the mug from Isidore grumpily.

'I'd have thought you knew better than to be taken in by idiots selling magic brews!' she said, taking a sip nonetheless.

Her facial expression changed.

'This is actually really good!' she said. 'Really tasty.'

She took a few more sips.

'Wow! I was skeptical at first, but I can actually feel it working! I feel awake already!'

She pulled Isidore down to give him a quick kiss.

'This is just perfect.'

~

The next morning, Isidore arose silently and reappeared in the bedroom with a fresh mug of the miraculous brew. Babylonne sat up and reached out sleepily for the drink. She took a sip, sighed with pleasure and smiled.

'I love you,' she said.

It was not until several moments later, when the drink had begun to work its magic, that she was sufficiently awake to realise with shock that that was the first time such words had left her mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am well aware that coffee was not introduced to Europe until several centuries after this story takes place. I work around this by making my fictionalised version of medieval Bologna a reasonably international town, whose population includes various communities of people displaced by war or hardship, who might've had access to food or drink from their homelands and sold it to the other residents of the town.


	10. Chapter 10

X. 'Are you trying to tell me,' Babylonne demanded, 'that we have _no_ food, and the market's closed and half the town appears to have headed off for some pathetic little festival in the neighbouring village?'

'That's exactly what I'm trying to tell you,' said Isidore apologetically. 'No food.'

'Except some lentils,' he added as an afterthought.

'Lentils? _Lentils_? Lentils aren't food, they're a cruel joke played on us by God,' said Babylonne with a grimace.

Isidore tried and failed to suppress his laughter. Then he pulled up the hood of his outdoor cloak.

'Well, there's only one thing left to do,' he said. 'Get your outdoor things, Babylonne.'

'Where are we going?'

'We're off to steal eggs from the Church, of course.'

~

'Stop being so noisy,' Babylonne hissed, twenty minutes later. The pair were creeping around the covered walkway leading to the kitchen gardens of a local monastery. Isidore was positive that the monks there also kept chickens.

'I can't help it!' Isidore whispered back. 'Unlike _some_ sprightly young things, I have old, debilitating war-wounds that make my knees crack.'

It was dark, and she was in front of him, but Isidore could've sworn he'd seen Babylonne's eyes roll.

'Where is this chicken coop, anyway?' she muttered.

'Not much further, I don't think. I've only been here once, though, when the extremely self-important cellerer, Brother Ambrose, thought it would be absolutely fascinating to show me the grounds - quick, hide!'

And the two of them flung themselves face first into the muddy vegetable patch, praying that the garlic plants growing around them would shield them from view.

An aged monk scuffed his way along the walkway, ringing a hand-bell and crying the hour. Isidore and Babylonne inhaled dirt, trembling, but the monk simply made a circuit of the garden and then shuffled off.

'Tell me again,' grumbled Babylonne, wiping mud from her face, 'why this was such a good idea.'

'Hey, I'm only following in your footsteps,' said Isidore.

They tiptoed onwards in the fading light.

~

'Who'd have thought these monks were smart enough to put a wall around their chicken coop?' said Babylonne. 'Well, there's nothing for it. You'll have to lift me over the wall, and I'll pass the eggs out to you.'

Isidore nodded. With some difficulty ('I think you might actually have grown a bit,' he said) he lifted her so that she was lying on her stomach across the wall. Babylonne tried to manoeuvre herself into a position from which she could jump down on the other side.

Just as she was sliding down, Isidore realised something.

'How are you going to get _out_?' he asked in an agitated whisper.

'I'll figure something out,' she said. 'Now stand watch and let me know if anyone's coming.'

Isidore sighed, and scanned the darkness.

~

After only ten seconds, Babylonne realised she was in trouble.

'Go away,' she muttered, kicking at a particularly inquisitive chicken.

It began squawking in an outraged manner. The sound was picked up by most of the other chickens.

'Babylonne, what the hell is going on there?' asked Isidore, trying to look over the wall.

'Nothing, nothing!' Babylonne replied, dodging two flapping birds. 'Oh, shut up!'

'What?'

'Not you - oh, you stupid bird!'

There was a more squawking, and then Babylonne's hands appeared at the wall, holding two eggs.

'Take them!' she said, and Isidore did so.

The noise of the chickens was fast approaching the level of a din. A very confused rooster adding its voice to the hullabaloo. It sounded as if Babylonne were being attacked.

'Get away - no, _move_!' she shouted.

And then Isidore heard exactly what he didn't want to hear. The din of the chickens had raised the alarm. There were several figures with torches hurrying over.

'Babylonne, don't worry, just get out! We've been discovered!'

' _Great_ ,' muttered Babylonne.

There was another shriek and some frenzied flapping as she kicked a chicken out of the way. Then, with much cursing and complaining, she heaved herself over the wall, and fell with a thump into an undignified heap on the ground. She was clutching two more eggs.

'Quick, run!' Isidore said, pulling her up.

And they sprinted through the monastery grounds, pursued by three irate monks and a cacophony of squawking hens.

~

They arrived home, sweaty and dirty, puffing. One of the eggs had broken in Isidore's hands.

'Well, that was a long run,' Babylonne said. 'I didn't expect them to pursue us outside the monastery's walls.'

'That was a brilliant idea to double back and hide behind the bakery's outdoor oven,' Isidore said, his breath coming in wheezing gasps.

Babylonne looked at the eggs, the two in her hands, the one in Isidore's.

'Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for three pitiful little eggs. Much like the last time.'

Isidore grinned broadly at her.

'Egg thievery. More trouble than it's worth,' he said, and suddenly the two of them were laughing hysterically.

Babylonne took the egg from his hands, her fingers brushing against his.

'Much too much trouble. But life's too short to live on lentils.'


End file.
